THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE.
Madame Jenny Goldschrnidt-Lind has begun a series of "miscellaneous concerts," at the Hanover Square Rooms. The first was given on Thurs- day evening. Its announcement excited as much interest as the previous Exeter MAI concerts, and the rooms were crowded to the doors at the same high rates of admission. From her selection of music for her own singing, it seemed her wish to show herself as unrivalled in vocal power and the mechanism of her art as she had previously done in the sublime and pathetic expression of sacred music : and in this object to a great ex- tent she succeeded. We certainly never before heard her display such a marvellous extent of vocal power at one performance. For a little while her voice was veiled by a slight huskiness; which seemed even to heighten the effect of her first air, Agathe's beautiful prayer in the Freischiitz. She poured out its simple, long-drawn notes, with that deep, heartfelt fervour, which she alone seems .able to feel and to express. Her next piece was of a very different kind—a scene from Bellini's weak opera Beatrice di Penile; in which a short recitative introduces one of those slight airs that are a mere ground to be covered ad libitum with em- broidery—one of those productions in which the composer does nothing in order that the singer may do everything. In this she showed not only her vocal power but her creative genius, filling up the meagre outline with the richest details and the most exquisite colouring that could be imagined. In truth—as is always the case when one of these Italian com- monplaces is given by a great artist—the air was more hers than Bellini's. She followed this by a still more remarkable display—one of those eccen- tricities of which she, as Malibran was, seems to be fond, and which she executes as none save Malibran could execute. It was a " suite " of Chopin's Pianoforte Mazourkas,—things of boundless difficulty even on the piano, and full of peculiar effects, which the piano, and that only in the hands of the greatest masters, can alone realize. The marvel of this performance lay in that matchless command of the scale and unerring certainty of intonation which enabled her to thread the mazes of the in- volved pianoforte passages, and to strike the widest and most unvocal intervals, with as much facility as the most finished player on the violin. There were many charming bits of melody too ; but the music, after all, was not Chopin's. The movements were taken in times very different from those indicated by the composer, and their character was changed by the mode of execution. It was an exhibition, however, little less wonderful than Paganini's of old. The audience accordingly listened with breathless astonishment, and applauded with enthusiasm. But they re- ceived a still higher delight from the specimen of simple ballad-singing which followed—the old Scotch song "John Anderson, my joe " ; a per- formance as matchless and unique in its way as anything we have ever heard from Jenny. Lind. It was the very soul of truth and nature, and was rendered still more engaging by her perfectly Scottish utterance, arising from her own Swedish accent. The words
"And we'll sleep together at the foot, John Anderson, my joe !" will long vibrate on the ears and hearts of those who heard them. She finished with the Swedish "Echo Song," which she used to sing for- merly. It is wild and strange; and so enormously difficult that the Swedish country-girls, if they sing such music, must be extraordinary vocalists, beating the Swiss and the Tyrolese all to nothing. Mr. Otto Goldschmidt played several pianoforte pieces, in different styles, and all of magnitude : Beethoven's Concerto in G, Mendelssohn's Capriccio in B minor, and Bach's Saraband and Allegro in A minor. In all of them he showed himself an accomplished performer, of the pure, classical school. He accompanied his wife, too, in Chopin's mazourkas and the Scotch ballad, with remarkable tact and delicacy. These performances, with a couple of overtures and two songs by Herr Reichardt, made up the concert.
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